Tag Archives: mail-in voting

Voting and Vote Counting 101

By tmess2 | Published October 20, 2024

Once again, we are facing the possibility that early election returns on November 5 will be very misleading.  In large part, this is due to the efforts of one candidate (he who shall not be named) to demonize one form of voting which means that there will likely be significant partisan differences based on the mechanism showing.  This problem is made worse by certain states which would rather make voting difficult in the name of preventing the tiny amount of fraud that exists rather than actually preventing fraud.

There are basically four types of voting in the U.S.:  1) Absentee/Mail-in voting; 2) Early (in-person) voting; 3) In-person (election day) voting; and 4) provisional voting.  Each state has slightly different rules for these types of voting.  This difference is most pronounced for absentee and early voting.  For early voting, the difference mostly comes down to the period for early voting (when it starts and when it ends) and the days/hours when early voting locations are open.

For absentee voting, there are two big areas of difference.  First, states differ on whether a reason is required for an absentee ballot and what reasons are accepted.  While almost every state now allows early voting, many states still require an excuse before a person can cast an absentee ballot.  Second, there is a wide variety of rules governing the deadline for casting an absentee ballot.  The big difference is whether the ballot must be received by election day or merely postmarked by election day.  However, six states (Alabama, Connecticut, Louisiana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, and West Virginia) require any absentee ballot dropped off by the voter to be dropped off by the day before the election, and two states (Louisiana and New Hampshire) require any ballot mailed to be received by the day before election day, and three states (North Dakota, Ohio, and Utah) require that mail-in ballots be post-marked by the day before the election.       Overall, thirty-five states are “received by” states and fifteen states (and the District of Columbia) are “post-marked by” states (but each of these states have a different post-election deadline for the receipt of ballots).  Of the crucial states (at least at the presidential and Senate level), only Nevada, Ohio, and Texas are “postmarked by” states. Continue Reading...

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Election Night Preview — Part 6 (Aftermath)

By tmess2 | Published November 1, 2020

This election may go down in history for being very, very bizarre.  Or it may lead to some necessary changes in state election law.  If Tuesday is a good night for the Democrats and Joe Biden, there will not be much to fight about starting Wednesday.  Likewise, a lot depends on what is still outstanding and remaining to be counted.  As we have noted previously, some states allow absentee ballots to be received after election day and some will not start counting the absentee ballots that have been received until election day.  The folks at 538 have done a summary of what states are likely to have almost all of the ballots counted by the end of election night and what states will still have many ballots to count.

Current polling suggests that Democrats are more likely to vote by mail and Republicans to vote in person.  As such, there are likely to be dramatic shifts in the vote as different types of ballots are counted.  This shift will matter in some of the states that will count almost all of their votes on election night, but it will matter more in the states that will be counting a significant number of votes after election night.

What happens after election night depends on where things stand at the end of the evening.  If Trump can hold some of his marginal states (Florida, Georgia, Iowa, and North Carolina), the race will come down to some late counting states.  On the other hand, if Trump is trailing in these states (and Arizona and Ohio) at the end of election day, the race is over. Continue Reading...

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Polling Places, Polling Judges, and COVID-19

By tmess2 | Published July 28, 2020

As we head into the late state and congressional primaries and get ready for the general election, we are faced with a recurring issue aggravated by COVID-19.  We have a very decentralized election infrastructure in this country.  There are certain benefits to the decentralized nature of elections in the United States, but there are also several big problems.

The benefits of a decentralized infrastructure is that it is very, very difficult to engage in election fraud large enough to make a difference in any election other than, maybe, the local mayor’s race in a small town.  In my state, there are over 100 election authorities and 3,600 precincts.  So you can possibly devise a scheme to stuff the ballot box in a handful of precincts or handful of counties (especially if the election judges nominally representing one party actually belong to the other party).  But you really need a close election for that to make a difference and you really need to add a lot of votes in those small number of precincts (enough to probably stand out).   The disadvantage is that it is hard to get everyone to follow best practices, especially as many local election authorities have other duties and are elected based on something other than their ability to properly conduct an election.

When it comes to elections, there are several big decisions committed to the discretion of the local election authority.  First, election authorities get to choose how many precincts there are (and where those precincts are located).  In theory, there are multiple factors that the election authority should consider — availability of buildings, local traffic patterns, parking in the vicinity, public transportation, the number of voters in particular precincts.  But most states give little guidance as far as maximum size of precincts. Continue Reading...

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